Guest View: A deadly night on the town in Afghanistan

The slaughter of foreigners in a restaurant in Kabul exposes dangers of nightlife in a warzone.

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By Brian Glyn Williams

southcoasttoday.com

By Brian Glyn Williams

Posted Jan. 21, 2014 at 12:01 AM

By Brian Glyn Williams

Posted Jan. 21, 2014 at 12:01 AM

» Social News

The slaughter of foreigners in a restaurant in Kabul exposes dangers of nightlife in a warzone.

In the spring of 2007, I was contracted by a government agency to travel to Afghanistan and carry out a study on the spread of suicide bombing in that country. The job made me jittery and more than a little paranoid about being targeted by one of the bombers wreaking havoc throughout Afghanistan at the time. That, combined with the inconveniences of traveling across the mountains and deserts of one of the most undeveloped countries in the world, took its toll on me.

Fortunately, my host, a member of President Karzai's family, told me that there were several restaurants and watering holes in Kabul. These catered to the thousands of foreigners, mainly non-governmental organization employees working on various projects.

I did not really know what to expect, as I was driven down the unlit streets of Kabul to my first destination, a French bar and restaurant known as L'Atmosphere. When we arrived at the restaurant there was nothing outside to give it away except for the presence of several armed guards. As we entered the nondescript, typical-walled edifice on the dark street, we went through a metal detector. Then we entered the outdoor courtyard of the restaurant.

Nothing prepared me for the shock of entering this other world. In the middle of the courtyard was a pool in which men and women swam together in the warm night in swimsuits and bikinis (something unimaginable in hyper-conservative Afghanistan). There were two bars serving cocktails, wine and beer (Afghanistan is an Islamic state and Muslims are not allowed to drink) and an outdoor restaurant serving French food. The clientele ranged from UN workers and war correspondents to contractor soldiers working for Blackwater and NGO employees. I remember having a wonderful Steak au Poivre with a red wine and momentarily forgetting all the horrors of the war and poverty that lay outside the walls of "L'Atmo."

My next stop the following week was at a bar and restaurant called the Ganndamack. This was a British-style pub built in the very compound that Osama bin Laden used to rent out for his family. One could actually get a pint of Guinness in the venue where bin Laden may have planned 9/11. Other forays took me to a Chinese restaurant where the imported Chinese waitresses doubled as prostitutes, the Deli Durbar Indian restaurant, and my favorite, a fine Lebanese restaurant called Taverna du Liban.

I was told that this was the golden age of Kabul nightlife. But I must say that on more than one occasion I worried that these oases of Westernism ("decadence and sinfulness" in the eyes of the Taliban fanatics) would make an inviting target for suicide bombers. Regardless, I remember the nightlife in Kabul, which I also enjoyed in 2009 while working at NATO headquarters, fondly.

It was therefore heartbreaking to open the pages of the newspaper Jan. 18 and find that my favorite venue, the Taverna du Liban, had been attacked and destroyed by Taliban terrorists the night before. In exactly the sort of scenario that I had feared, a suicide bomber cleared the path for Taliban executioners, who then burst into the restaurant hunting down and systematically slaughtering foreigners. It was, by all accounts, a bloodbath. The dead included a representative of the International Monetary Fund in Afghanistan, the United Nations' senior political affairs officer and a British Labour Party candidate for the European Parliament. Two Americans working at the American University in Afghanistan were also killed in the attack, which took the lives of 21 foreigners. Among those killed was Kamal Hamade, the congenial restaurant owner who personally greeted me and all his guests. He was shot dead while defending his beloved restaurant with a pistol.

I can imagine the ripple of fear that has surely coursed through Kabul's expat community as the news of this unprecedented assault on their safety bubble. Sadly, I believe the terrorist outrage on this brave band of foreign civilians who traveled from their safe homes to rebuild war-torn Afghanistan presages future attacks on Kabul. As U.S. troops are coming home in waves, ending America's longest war, the Taliban insurgents are becoming emboldened and moving closer to the capital. I believe the bombing is also a metaphor for the whole house of cards we have built in Afghanistan with American taxpayer dollars and blood. It remains to be seen whether the democratic Afghanistan which we have built in the sands of Central Asia will, like the Taverna du Liban, be destroyed when we withdraw our final troops this year.